Dehydrating attachment for flash testers



May 28. 1929. s. E. CALVIN 1, 14 7 DEHYDRATING ATTACHMENT FOR FLASH TESTERS Filed Oct 51, 1927 same oil free from water.

Patented May 28, 1929.

SAMUEL n. cALvIn, or TERMINAL ISLAND, CALIFORNIA.

DEHYDRATING- ATTACHMENT FLASH TESTERS.

Application filed. October 31, 1927. Serial No. 230,197.

In testing oils which contain water for flash point in the well known closed cup instruments, difliculty is often experienced due to the presence in the oil vapor of variable quantities of water vapor, by which an accurate flash test reading is made difiicult or impossible.

This ditliculty hasits basis in the fact that, in closed. cup instruments, there is no means for complete escape of the water vapor, and as a mixture of water vapor and oil vapor is less readily ignited than a pure oil vapor, an

oil containing water must be heated to a hi gher temperature to produce the flash than the The test or flashing temperature is thus raised, by the pres ence of water, to a material and indeterminate degree above the true test.

I have discovered that by placing in the vapor space within the flash cup an absorbent for water vapor, such vapor may be removed as fast as formed, and the true flash test obtained with facility in oils containing any commonly occurring proportion of water.

A preferred means for applying my invention is illustrated in the attached drawings, in which Figure 1 is a vertical section of a flash tester cup containing my improved vapor dehydrator.

Figure 2 is a plan view of Figure 1, and Figure 3 is a plan view of the dehydrator basket indicated at 3 in Figure l.

any closed flash tester, which is filled with oil to a fixed height as indicated at 2. 3 is a ring shaped shallow basket formed of fine brass Wire mesh, supported on the upper edge of .the oil cup (below the cover not shown) by the hooks 666. In the plan view, Fig ure 3, the openings and 5 through the basket are to admit the test flame and the-thermometer respectively. The cup is supported in the heating bath by the usual flange 7. The basv lret is to be filled for use with coarse granulated calcium clorid or other solid dehydrating agent, which must be discarded and replaced when it loses its capacity for absorbmg water.

It will be understood that the flash cup described is no part of my invention, which resides solely in the dehydration of oil vapors within any such cup and in the means for such dehydration.

I claim as my invention:

In combinationi a closed cup flash tester and a receptacle within the, cup of said tester for retaining a dehydrating agent, said receptacle communicating with the interior of said cup for permitting contact of said dehydrating agent with vapors of the oil being tested.

In witness that I claim the foregoing I have hereunto subscribed my namethis 20th day of September,'1927.

SAMUEL E. CALVIN. 

